Like your coffee in Styrofoam? It will come with a fine if Hollywood ban goes ahead

Those polystyrene containers used by restaurants for decades may be getting the heave-ho in Hollywood.

A citywide ban would mean customers could be fined just for walking out of a restaurant or coffee shop with a cup or takeout container made of the wrong stuff.

Hollywood can’t fine the business because of a state law passed last year that prohibits cities from banning polystyrene foam from restaurants, convenience stores and grocery stores.

But they can ban it from public places throughout the entire city, including the beach, parks, sidewalks and food truck events.

City commissioners already gave tentative approval to a ban in September and debated the issue again Wednesday. They are expected to take a final vote as soon as November.

Bob Ferro, owner of Nicks restaurant on the beach, was dumbfounded to learn the restaurants wouldn’t be fined, but the customers would.

“That’s so asinine,” he said. “Which one of the bright commissioners came up that? I don’t want my customer getting a ticket for having a Styrofoam cup.”

Ferro says he plans to stop using Styrofoam if the ban goes through.

Hasan Kochan, who owns Istanbul Restaurant at the beach, says he too would stop using Styrofoam, even though it’s much cheaper.

“I’m not going to use it if my customers are going to be fined,” he said.

Polystyrene, said by experts to take hundreds of years to decompose, has also been banned by Seattle, San Francisco and Miami Beach — well before Florida ruled local governments can’t ban foam containers from private businesses.

Susannah Bryan/Sun Sentinel

Styrofoam containers sit on a table Thursday at Nicks on the beach. If Hollywood bans polystyrene from public places, customers could be fined if caught walking out of a restaurant with a take-out container made of polystyrene.

Styrofoam containers sit on a table Thursday at Nicks on the beach. If Hollywood bans polystyrene from public places, customers could be fined if caught walking out of a restaurant with a take-out container made of polystyrene. (Susannah Bryan/Sun Sentinel)

In Hollywood, city leaders initially discussed stiff penalties — $500 fines and 60 days in jail — for customers caught on public property with polystyrene containers.

But even if the ban passes, drinking coffee out of a foam cup likely won’t get you jail time.

“I don’t think any one of us wants anyone in jail for holding polystyrene,” Mayor Josh Levy said.

Levy suggested making the fines the same as those for getting caught with an open container of alcohol on the beach: $50 for a first offense, $100 for a second and $200 for a third violation.

A few commissioners worried about turning park rangers, code officers and cops into the Styrofoam police.

Hollywood already prohibits beachfront restaurants with sidewalk tables along the Broadwalk from using paper napkins and non-disposable tableware that can blow away. But that rule is rarely if ever enforced, city officials say.

“I have no problem applying a penalty fee, but if we don’t enforce it is it really going to make a difference?” Commissioner Traci Callari said. “And that’s the challenge we have.”

Another ordinance approved more than 25 years ago banned straws, plastic and polystyrene products from restaurants east of the Intracoastal. But Fallik said that ordinance never took effect and cannot be enforced.

Catherine Uden, executive chair of the Surfrider Foundation for Broward County, believes the city can modify the ban it already has on the books, making Hollywood the only city in Broward County with a ban on polystyrene at restaurants and other establishments.

“Styrofoam is not biodegradable,” she said. “It breaks up into tiny pieces and it’s very difficult to clean up. It hurts our marine life. It never really goes away.”

Dan Serafini, president of the Hollywood Beach Business Association, plans to encourage restaurants to make the switch to biodegradable products.

“It only benefits the beach,” said Serafani, who owns GiGi’s Waterfront Bar & Grill. “There are so many other options today, there’s really no excuse. We have to protect our environment.”

Commissioner Peter Hernandez said he backs a public ban and wants it to start at City Hall, where a vendor serves soup in polystyrene.

“Let’s be progressive,” he said. “Let’s do the right thing for our kids.”

Hernandez said he’d like to see the ban applied citywide, not just along the beach.

“We are still an ocean community,” he said. “And if this doesn’t end up in the ocean, it stays in a dump somewhere. Other cities have managed to do it. Why not us?”